Springer and Université Joseph Fourier release SciDetect to discover fake scientific papers
The new, open source software is publically available for free to the scientific and publishing communities
Grenoble | Heidelberg | New York, 23 March 2015
After intensive collaboration with Dr. Cyril Labbé from Université Joseph Fourier in Grenoble, France, Springer announces the release of SciDetect, a new software program that automatically checks for fake scientific papers. The open source software discovers text that has been generated with the SCIgen computer program and other fake-paper generators like Mathgen and Physgen. Springer uses the software in its production workflow to provide additional, fail-safe checking. Springer and the University are releasing the software under the GNU General Public License, Version 3.0 (GPLv3) so others in the scientific and publishing communities can benefit.
SciDetect scans Extensible Markup Language (XML) and Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files and compares them against a corpus of fake scientific papers. SciDetect indicates whether an entire document or its parts are genuine or not. The software reports suspicious activity by relying on sensitivity thresholds that can be easily adjusted. SciDetect is highly flexible and can be quickly customized to cope with new methods of automatically generating fake or random text.
“SciDetect, developed by Tien Nguyen, a member of Dr. Labbé’s team of PhD students, is a valuable building block for the future of academic publishing. It helps us ensure that unfair methods and quick cheats do not go unnoticed. We stand behind the integrity of our authors and consider it our duty to uphold this ethical principle. Accordingly, we have decided to make the software freely available to our partners,” explained Dr. Hubertus von Riedesel, Executive Vice President Physical Sciences and Engineering at Springer.
“Although software cannot supplant peer reviews and academic evaluation, SciDetect lends publishers an additional hand in the fight against fraud and fake papers,” said Dr. Cyril Labbé, who has been working with Springer since last year. “The software can scan large volumes of materials and give publishers further assurance about the reliability and quality of accepted papers. At Springer, the software already aids the evaluation process before production begins. Our cooperation with Springer has been very productive so far, and we look forward to making further improvements to the software together.”
In February 2014, Springer learned that it had published 18 articles that were generated by the SCIgen computer program, which creates fake documents for submission as Computer Science and Engineering conference papers. Springer immediately reached out to Dr. Labbé, the leading expert in the field. As a result of their cooperation, Springer decided to fund a PhD candidate in Dr. Labbé’s team, who is working with Springer to create better detection mechanisms and guard against any future programs that are similar to SCIgen.
Université Joseph Fourier in Grenoble is a world-renowned, leading research university specializing in science, technology and health, and hosts over 19,000 students, 1,550 PhD students, 1,500 faculty members and researchers, as well as 1,500 technical and administrative staff. The university is in the top 150 of universities worldwide (Shanghai ranking, 2014), and is part of the Université Grenoble Alpes, which is a broader entity encompassing 60,000 students from all disciplines in one area of natural beauty – Grenoble. Nestled at the heart of the Alps, the city enjoys panoramic views of the surrounding Belledonne, Chartreuse and Vercors mountain ranges. Among France’s leading cities for the quality of its student life, it is also an outstanding international scientific community, home to several international research institutions and key national research bodies.
Springer Science+Business Media ist ein international führender Verlag für hochwertige Inhalte in innovativen Informationsprodukten und Dienstleistungen im Bereich Science, Technology, Medicine. Hauptzielgruppe sind Forscher in Hochschulen und wissenschaftlichen Instituten ebenso wie in Forschungsabteilungen von Unternehmen. Die Verlagsgruppe ist außerdem ein renommierter Anbieter von Fachpublikationen in Europa, insbesondere im deutschsprachigen Raum und den Niederlanden. Diese werden von Ärzten sowie Fachleuten aus dem Gesundheitswesen und der Verkehrserziehung genutzt. Springer brachte 2013 etwa 2.200 englischsprachige Zeitschriften und mehr als 8.400 neue Bücher heraus. Ebenso erscheint im Verlag die weltweit größte eBook-Collection im Bereich Science, Technology, Medicine und das umfangreichste Portfolio an Open Access-Zeitschriften. Springer Science+Business Media erzielte 2013 einen Jahresumsatz von ca. 943 Millionen Euro. Die Gruppe hat weltweit mehr als 8.000 Mitarbeiter.
About Université Joseph Fourier Grenoble
Renate Bayaz | Springer | Corporate Communications
tel +49 6221 487 8531 | renate.bayaz@springer.com
